Darksiders
Three large sculptures and some giant caves, all in the efforts to promote the THQ Nordic game Darksiders, which did installed at Gamescon in Germany in 2018 and 2019
This is undoubtably one of my favourite jobs I have worked on. Working through the aspects of the job individually, the first character is Vulgrim. We sculpted the figure from the waist up in clay, then divided the sculpt with brass shim. The horns, wings, crown spikes and hands were removed, and moulded invividually. Because of the spiky nature of the wings, I moulded them in a classic silicone/ fibreglass jackt style, so we could peel the silicone away like a sock. The rest of the figure was done using silicone-towel methods we had used previously on the Bugs moulds. Once all the pieces were cast, we retrofit some box steel armature pieces, and fibreglass podged the pieces together. Once the body was fitted we created an aluminium 'cage' which we riveted to the body. This is what we hung all the skirts and armour panels to. We also used the central stand to house all the smoke machines and electronics
The skirts were three layers of real leather, and the decals were made out of plastozote, which I sculpted myself. I Also made the scrolls and stamps, which were plastozote for one sculpt, and thermalplastic for the replicas. I also ended up figuring out a lot of the construction and fitting methods for the various pieces.
The character of Fury was especially challenging. The sculpture was cast around 60mm box steel in her leg - a structure that we would have to incorporate into the final cast. We ended up making a 40-piece silicone-towel mould, which we managed to cast and close in fibreglass. Whilst there was a decent amount of clear-up to do, the difficulty of rebuilding a 40-piece mould in such a dynamic pose around such a large amount of metal was significant. However, we managed to get there in the end, and the whole cast was erected projecting out of some poly rocks, which hid her base steelwork. The whip was made out of clear perspex pipe, heated into shape, with runs of colour-changing LED strips going from top to bottom, terminating at a transformer built into the base.
The Charred Council was three large polycarved caves in the shape of demonic forms. The bases were pure poly divided through the middle. My biggest challenge in this job was the polyurea spraying of these sculpts. As the material is 45 degrees when sprayed, and this was done while wearing protective plastics and an air-fed mask, it meant that doing this in the July heat meant a horrendously hot and sweaty job. We had to fill our suits with ice packs just to get through without feeling faint. Thankfully the polyurea worked perfectly in provided a solid coating that cures quickly.
In 2019 THQ Nordic decided to add another character to their booth. Strife was made in a similar manner to the other two figures, with a poly base and clay skin foring the bulk of the sculpt. The guns were CNC cut and moulded in a silicone box mould. The body was a classic silicone fibreglass jacket mould. We cast the body in two layers of 225g/m fibreglass matting over flame retardant gel coat. I personally sculpted and finished the holsters for the guns, and I also took responsibility for attaching various pieces of the armour which were made independently of the master sculpt, namely areas on the upper arm, wrists and knees. We made fastcast spikes for the hair, which we attached to a varaform wig cap. Finally, we made a varaform scarf and wrapped it in coarse hessian. The belts were made from leather, and the shells made from plastozote dipped in resin,.
Another character piece that we made for THQ was a biomechanical Panda from the game Biomutant. I enjoyed working on this piece, as I loved the character design. I did the moulding, casting and detailing of the panda head, which was another pure fibreglass mould rather than more silicone. The nose piece was going to be cast too, but we decided to just stick with the original wooden sculpt.
As well as working on the moulds and casts both years, I also had the pleasure on going on the rigs and de-rigs on both the 2018 and 2019 installs. These installs were long days, usually in excess of 12 hours each, and required a lot of physical labour. There was also a lot of scenic painting on both rigs, with the effort being put in place to make sure everything tied together pefectly. I have enjoyed working on site, because it means you tend to see people actually enjoy the props once they are installed. Some days have been very difficult, such as the first de-rig, which involved flying to Germany early morning and working through the night till 4am in an effort to get the booth clear by the morning. Having worked around the convention on both years, i can say that our work is an equal for the best booths at the venue, which was reflected in THQ Nordic winning the Best Booth award in 2019.
